


Machine Gun

by silverskyfullofstars



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Mai & Ty Lee at the Boiling Rock, Mai's perspective, Songfic, from the Day of Black Sun to the end of the Hundred Year War, hence the teen rating, less than canon-typical, reflecting on her relationships and identity, there's some cussing in this but not much violence, this got way plottier than I expected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27221941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverskyfullofstars/pseuds/silverskyfullofstars
Summary: It was kind of a wild ride between the Day of Black Sun and the end of the Hundred Year War. Sides were taken, battles were fought, firebending was lost and gained and taught and mastered. Team Avatar stood against the Fire Nation and won, and the world entered a new age of peace.For Mai, it wasn't a roller coaster from battle to battle, but her experience of the last weeks of the war was no less complex and life-changing.
Relationships: Azula & Mai & Ty Lee, Azula & Mai (Avatar), Mai & Ty Lee (Avatar), Mai & Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	Machine Gun

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure, I started writing this at the end of May when I first finished watching ATLA, but I slacked off a bit and only just finished, so it might not be perfectly cohesive. I hope you enjoy it anyway!
> 
> Beta read by [Kiyo_Mizuki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyo_Mizuki)  
> Title from ["Machine Gun"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fN54aD2B_A) by Sara Bareilles
> 
> -
> 
> Unrelated to this story, but happy Ace Week! As of posting, it is day 2 and your asexual author is thriving (as much as one can thrive mid-pandemic).

_Tell me off in a letter_

_Completely ignore me_

_Gettin' high off of saying_

_Why you don't adore me_

_Baby, please, I'm well-versed_

_In how I might be cursed_

_I don't need it articulated_

Mai doesn’t expect the letter before she finds it, but once she does, she wonders how she could have missed it. Rolled up into a cylinder and tied carefully with a red ribbon, it sits on her pillow, white against the dark red sheets. Stark black ink stands out against the creamy parchment, each elegant slash of the brush as brutal as a blade.

_Dear Mai, I'm sorry that you have to find out this way, but I'm leaving._

His words cut like the edges of her knives used to when she was first learning to use them - she never injured herself badly, but there was always an aura of shame, clouding her vision with hot tears. _You aren’t good enough_ , her bleeding fingers said. _If you were good enough, you wouldn’t have gotten hurt_.

She takes a deep breath, clutching the letter in her hands and trying to keep her tears from falling. Crying goes against everything she’s ever shown to the world - she can’t break her mask now. It feels like porcelain now, delicate and smooth, but so very easy to shatter.

Tears banished for the moment, she unrolls the letter again. Zuko’s handwriting is beautiful, each character the picture of perfection. Mai remembers how she sat through calligraphy lessons with Azula and Ty Lee as a child, the instructor’s voice flowing softly but firmly through her mind. _Do not hold the brush as you would a knife_ , Mai remembers her saying. _Writing is an art, not a battle_. Mai knows now that her instructor was wrong - not about how to hold a brush, but about the nature of writing. A letter is as much a weapon as a knife, though the wielder’s grip is different.

Mai remembers coming out of calligraphy classes at ten years old with ink on her fingers. She and Ty Lee always had a few streaks of black ink to clean off their hands, though never fared as badly as Zuko, who left his own lessons with ink spots scattered up to his elbows.

Azula never spilled a drop of ink.

She would wonder aloud - loud enough to carry to the other side of the courtyard where Zuko sat - how much one had to try to get ink on their sleeves, since calligraphy wasn’t really that hard at all. Mai and Ty Lee would nod in silence or muttered agreement, surreptitiously tugging their own sleeves over the black marks on their hands.

Mai recalls one foolish day when she followed Zuko after his calligraphy lesson. She had gotten the idea that perhaps Azula would stop teasing him if she could prove that he wasn’t as clumsy as his ink-stained robes made him seem. She trailed him all the way to the training grounds for his lesson with Master Piandao.

The swordmaster was a nonbender - Mai had once heard her parents discussing how sad it was that such skilled benders had produced such a disappointing heir. _I heard he deserted the military_ , one of her mother’s friends had whispered rather loudly from behind her decorative fan. _They say they tried to arrest him, but he defeated one hundred soldiers! I don’t believe it - a nonbender? Nonetheless, they leave him alone. I can’t believe the Fire Lord allows such an upstart to teach his son_. Mai had sat silently as she always did, the picture of the perfect child. She had thought fighting one hundred men and winning sounded very exciting, but she knew that her parents didn’t want her opinion. Children were meant to be seen, not heard.

Watching Master Piandao training Zuko, Mai was more inclined to believe the stories. The swordmaster led his young pupil through a series of movements that were just as graceful as firebending katas. Zuko seemed more at home here than he ever did with his firebending instructors. His every motion was like a dance or a dream, his dual dao flashing in the sunlight without a hint of fire or flame ever escaping his hands. His control was impeccable, especially for someone so young. Mai was mesmerized.

Her hunch had been right, but Mai knew she could never tell Azula about this. Seeing her brother exceed at something would only drive Azula to torment him more. She would say the same horrible things about nonbenders and wasted potential that Mai heard the ladies say at home during her mother’s tea services, even though none of them had a spark to speak of.

When Azula asked her where she’d been that afternoon, Mai stayed silent. This time, though, she did it for herself and Zuko, not because someone told her she had to. There was a bubbly feeling of rebellion that followed her for the rest of the day, and it drew her back to the training grounds. It kept her there even when Master Piandao caught her watching, and it pushed her to take a leap of faith and accept when the swordmaster presented her with a set of throwing knives and asked her if she would like to join them the next day.

Staring at the letter and thinking about what she’s lost to Zuko, Mai doesn’t think of kisses in the dark or holding hands under the sleeves of their court robes. She thinks of those days learning how to throw knives together under Master Piandao’s watchful eye. She remembers how sure of himself he was back then. She remembers how he hugged her when she first hit the center of the target with her stilettos, and how he couldn’t wipe the elated grin off his face when he learned to block her throwing knives with his swords. _We can finally train together!_ he’d exclaimed. _We already train together, stupid_ , she’d replied. He’d dragged her into a spiral of back-and-forth _nuh-uhs_ and _yah-huhs_ before she’d pinned his sleeves to the ground, effectively ending the mock-argument. He’d laughed, flat on his back in the courtyard with the joy of his youth ringing around him off the stones.

Two weeks after that day, news of Prince Lu Ten’s death reached the Fire Lord’s palace. By the turn of the month, Fire Lord Azulon died and Zuko’s mother left the palace in the dead of night. It took barely three weeks after that for Fire Lord Ozai to dismiss Master Piandao from the palace in a fit of temper. Zuko continued his swordplay lessons on his own. Mai practiced her knifework on the sidelines of Azula’s firebending lessons. She was never invited onto the training ground.

Mai throws herself onto her bed, letter by her side. She traces the edge of one of her knives with her thumb, light enough not to draw blood. She wonders what could have cursed that laughing young boy into a life that drove him to leave every good thing he ever had behind.

She wonders if she’s the good thing, or the curse.

_Stand in line wasting_

_All of your time, just to hate me_

_Every dime gone to ways_

_You can find that might bait me_

_And drag me down, sight set proudly_

_Bring me to the ground see_

_You love to be somebody's enemy_

Despite Mai’s best efforts, she spends the first few days after the letter in a low place. She doesn’t leave her rooms, taking meals by herself and only opening the door to silent servants who change her sheets and whisk away her dishes and laundry. Her father had tried to make her come to dinner on that first night, but her mother had convinced him to let her be. Mai would be grateful, except she knows her mother is just trying to gain her trust in the hopes that Mai will come crying to her and give her the chance to play pretend at having a close relationship with her daughter.

Mai loves her family, she really does, but everyone in the house feels so hollow sometimes. Every moment of her life has been an act for the court.

Her only moments of calm were when she was alone with Zuko. Although he was embroiled even deeper in the inner workings of the Fire Nation’s royal court, he always made her feel like she could escape the suffocation of high society.

When he’d returned from exile, Mai felt like she’d found an equal. Their connection morphed from childhood infatuation into a sense of companionship fueled by their shared discomfort with the world they lived in. There was no more laughter in the courtyards or mock dueling on the training grounds. Instead, there were palanquin rides around the Caldera and picnics in the royal gardens. They’d poke fun at the people they passed on the streets or try to shock the servants by kissing in every alcove they could find. Sometimes they’d just waste time together. Thinking back, Mai can almost feel the ghost of Zuko’s warmth next to her. They sat close during those times, as if body heat might be enough to dispel the shadows that surrounded them. Their parents, the war, their futures… and always Azula, hanging over their shoulders like the smell of ozone before a lightning storm.

Mai thinks she always knew it wouldn’t last.

Those months with Zuko were as much poison as peace. They’d fly back and forth between extremes, engrossed in the feel of each other one moment and trading accusations the next. She remembers days spent curled up on a sofa with him, his hands in her hair and on her waist and always drawing her face back to his. She remembers how some days his shadow was worse than Azula’s, when they’d walk the streets together and she’d twirl her papery umbrella around to block the sun, pretending not to notice how he glared at every young man whose gaze strayed to her. How his hand tightened around hers like he wasn’t sure if he was trapping her or reassuring himself.

Mai remembers the few times when the façade would break. When he’d stop trying to scare off competition or show off or treat her like a generic archetype of a girl. She remembers how his golden eyes would shine with mirth behind his messy fringe of hair, how his smile would be filled with the same same soft joy he had in childhood. It came when he cradled the turtle ducks in his hands and set them down in her lap, watching them scrabble around on the silky cloth and quack furiously to be pet. It came when she held Tom Tom’s chubby little hand in hers and he’d crouch down on her little brother’s level to say hello, making funny faces and forming his fire into glowing little forms of flowers and animals. It came when they’d watch the sun set and the stars come out from the rooftops, just the two of them, closer to the sky than the ground below. It came when they walked in the gardens and he’d stop her for a moment and turn to face her, reaching for her hands and telling her she was beautiful.

It always shattered in the end. Mai and Zuko craved soft things, but they were too sharp and erratic to keep them. They’d kiss just a little too rough, hold just a little too tight, until the pressure rose and it all burst out in steel and flame and shouted words. He’d call her cold and uncaring, and she’d call him possessive and self-centered. He’d accuse her of wanting to leave him, and she’d tell him he made it easy for people to hate him. He’d spit out the names of other young men they knew, ask her who else she was seeing. She’d mock the young women of the court with all their perfume and pity, ask him if he knew who he was stringing along. They’d stomp back home seething, then run right back to each other after a day or two to cool off. They’d burn up and fly apart and crash back together, mired in love and lies.

Mai knows how toxic they were. She knew it from the beginning that neither of them were in the right place for a relationship, but she’d indulged in childhood dreams of princes and true love. She’s paying the price now. It hurts.

Still, her mind strays back to him. If she shuts her eyes tight, she can feel the echo of him pressed against her, arms wrapped around her and legs tangled with hers and sharp jaw digging into the top of her head. Mai knows they were stupid, knows they were hurting each other, but Agni, she just wants to hold and be held again.

_Maybe nobody loved you when you were young_

_Maybe, boy, when you cry, nobody ever comes_

_Will you try it once?_

_Give up the machine gun_

_Machine gun, yeah_

One week after Zuko leaves, Mai combs her hair, puts on a clean set of robes, and leaves the house. She has her weapons under her clothes as always, polished to a shine. (She doesn’t think about why they’re polished - it was something to use up her focus when she felt her mind wandering into old, hurtful places.)

She doesn’t take the palanquin, and she walks all the way to the gates of the palace before she stops. _Why am I here?_ she asks herself. It’s not for Zuko - he’s not here anymore. It’s not for herself - there’s no one in that palace she wants to see besides Azula and Ty Lee, and she wouldn’t say she _wants_ to see them right now. She’s doing better, she really is, but Ty Lee tends to unwittingly poke at recent wounds. Azula digs in deliberately with her fingernails until you bleed.

So Mai turns away from the gates and heads towards Caldera City’s downtown. The shops are high-end and expensive this close to the palace and the surrounding mansions, catering to the nobles who live in the area, but they become more cramped and less imposing as she goes. By the time she gets to the market, the city’s social center, the shops have migrated out of their storefronts into a maze of stalls and carts that fill the nearby squares and plazas. Smoke is billowing out from under a tent in front of a butcher shop, where a butcher’s boy is turning whole komodo chickens on a spit. A produce vendor is shouting about the price of mangoes, and children stand on corners with baskets of flowers and fire flakes, trying to make a few coins off the people walking by.

One little girl sprints to jump in front of Mai, holding out a handful of fire lilies.

“A flower, my lady? The fire lilies have just begun to bloom!”

Mai humors the girl, handing her a silver coin and taking a flower from the bouquet. They really are beautiful, each lily a vibrant red with faint speckles of orange. They remind Mai of her aunt’s flower shop on Ember Island. She’d spent her childhood summers there, helping her aunt arrange the flowers while her parents ignored her in favor of sipping cocktails with the other wealthy nobles who frequented the island. Not that Mai is bitter or anything - they were some of the best summers of her life. At the flower shop, nothing was expected of her. She helped arrange the flowers because she liked to, and because she was good at it.

Mai’s not good at much besides throwing knives lately. At least that’s what it feels like.

Mai tucks the fire lily behind her ear and continues weaving her way between the stalls. She doesn’t have a destination - she just keeps walking aimlessly. At some point, she buys a small basket of cherries from a vendor, and she spits the pits into the gutters as she walks. It’s not ladylike in the least, but Mai doesn’t really give a shit. With each pit that rattles onto the cobblestones, she’s less and less sure why she’s walking around the city anymore. 

Mai stops in the middle of the street, disgusted with herself. Maybe this wasn’t the liberating first step outside she thought it was. Maybe it’s the same old attention-grabbing stunt she’s been pulling in countless forms since the moment she realized she wasn’t enough for her parents as herself. She tosses the empty cherry basket in a trash can and turns toward home. This day really didn’t turn out how she wanted it to.

When she gets home, cherry stains on her fingers and a wilted fire lily forgotten in her hair, there’s a new letter waiting for her.

The next day, Mai combs her hair, puts on a clean set of robes, and leaves the house. She walks through the palace gates and doesn’t look back.

“Princess Azula wanted to see me,” she tells the guard as she breezes by.

🜂

“We have a mission!” Azula announces as soon as Mai and Ty Lee are seated in front of her.

Mai doesn’t know why she expected anything different. Azula’s letter had been brusque, as always - _Come to the palace. Wear something you can fight in. Bring your weapons._ Maybe she thought they’d be sparring or something, but when Azula slams the map down on the table, she knows that was just wishful thinking.

“There’s been a development,” Azula continues. She points to an island on the map with a sharp fingernail. “My dear brother hasn’t been seen since the failed invasion, which begs the question… why did I get a messenger hawk last night informing me that he is currently a prisoner at the Boiling Rock?”

“I don’t know, why?” Ty Lee asks.

“That was rhetorical, Ty Lee,” Mai says. 

Why the hell Ty Lee picked “bubbly idiot” as her armor of choice against Azula, Mai will never know, but sometimes she wonders how Azula can possibly think Ty Lee is as dumb as she acts. _I don’t know, why?_ Agni’s sake, this isn’t a standup comedy routine or a children’s entertainment show. There’s no punch line to set up. It’s just war, plain and simple.

Azula barely notices. “I’ve packed bags for you already. Let’s get to the airship, we don’t have any time to waste.”

She shoves two bags in Mai and Ty Lee’s direction, then marches off towards the airship docks, her guards in tow. 

Mai rummages in her bag and finds a fresh set of clothes, a bottle of water, and a shiny new throwing knife. The blade is shaped like the Fire Nation flame motif. Part of her is pissed, because she’d be perfectly capable of packing her own bag if Azula had deigned to tell her they were going somewhere. Mostly, she just feels sad. She knows that Azula oversaw whoever packed these bags personally, and she knows that the knife was meant as a gift. It’s too new to be a hand-me-down, and Azula doesn’t use knives. She also knows that Azula’s father is not forgiving of emotional attachment, and that if Azula were seen commissioning custom knives for Mai or ordering expensive hair ribbons for Ty Lee, it wouldn’t end well for her. Mai and Ty Lee aren’t friends with Azula, not in the Fire Lord’s eyes. They are strategically placed soldiers or attendants or decoration, whatever they need to be in the moment.

Mai tucks the new knife into her sleeve and closes the bag, following Ty Lee towards the airships.

_Locked and loaded_

_You're practically floating away now_

_In your fortress you feel like_

_You're more or less safe now_

_But let me say, I don't mean harm_

_Oh, but, baby, you'd be charming if you'd come undone_

_Get back where you started from_

With her hands restrained behind her back and Azula’s dismissal echoing in her ears, all Mai can think is _shit_. She doesn’t resist when the guards throw her and Ty Lee into a cell. Mai knows there’s nowhere to escape to, not with Azula on the island. She and Ty Lee are just lucky they got sympathetic guards - her wrists will bruise, but they’ve been locked into one of the more spacious cells meant for noble prisoners, not the crowded common cells or (Agni forbid) the firebender coolers. Leave it to the Fire Nation to have nepotism even in prison, but Mai’s not complaining, not right now.

“Do…do you think she meant it?” Ty Lee asks. Her voice is shakier than Mai has ever heard it, and it scares her. Ty Lee is an actress by talent, trade, and necessity, and to see her mask crack means it’s serious.

“I never know with Azula, but since we’re in prison I’m inclined to say yes.”

“But we’re her friends!” Ty Lee protests. “Even Azula has to care about her friends...right?”

Mai doesn’t want to shatter Ty Lee’s hope, not when her shaky optimism is clearly the only thing keeping her together. Still, she can’t lie to Ty Lee. She doesn’t deserve to be deceived, even in the name of kindness.

“Ty Lee…” Mai reaches out to her friend, a rare outward gesture of care. “Azula doesn’t look at the world like most people do. People are pawns to her. You can love her, but I don’t know if it goes anywhere.”

It’s just a hand on her shoulder, but Ty Lee leans into it like a lifeline.

“I know,” she whispers. “I think I always knew. I guess I just thought… I thought if we stayed with her long enough and pretended everything was okay then maybe she’d realize… maybe she’d start to feel something.”

Mai’s hand slips off Ty Lee’s shoulder as she moves to the bed in the corner of the cell. It’s not large, but it’s as clean as prison cell furniture gets, and they’ll both fit if they need to. Mai drifts to the chair next to the door as Ty Lee curls up on top of the bedspread, back to the room. 

Mai fiddles with the hems of her trailing sleeves. She lost most of her weapons during the brief battle, and the guards confiscated her last few knives. She doesn’t want them to escape - she wouldn’t try anything even if she was armed - but she misses the feeling of safety they give her. She even misses the little flame knife Azula gave her when they left the Caldera. She wonders how she can feel so attached to the symbol of her ruined life, but she knows the answer is simple.

All the steps that have led her to this spot are shadowed by the Fire Nation royal family. Her parents’ wish for power led to her contrived friendship with Azula. Azula led her to Zuko, and Zuko has brought her to where she is now. Mai is surprised to realize that she didn’t lie to Azula, not at all. She does love Zuko, even though she’s not sure she ever told him. Underneath all the pain and anger of their tumultuous relationship, she will always care for him.

She cares for Azula too. She didn’t lie when she said she loved Zuko more than she feared Azula, but she didn’t tell the whole truth. Mai loves Azula, loves the echo of the person she used to be. Mai and Ty Lee have always known that Azula was as unsafe as Zuko at home, even if they were endangered in different ways. Where Zuko was physically and emotionally abused by his father, Azula was manipulated. The blank, sadistic face of the perfect soldier overcame the girl Azula once was years ago. Mai knows that Ty Lee thinks the real Azula is still there somewhere, but Mai’s not sure. Still, she can’t leave her. Leaving the monster Azula is now means abandoning the little girl who was Mai’s first real friend, and she can’t bring herself to cut that tie.

Now, sitting in a prison cell on Azula’s orders, Mai feels a twisted kind of relief that she wasn’t the one to sever the last thread.

🜂

She and Ty Lee spend a day and a half in their cell before the warden visits them.

“I can’t free you,” he says.

Mai nods placidly. “I know, Uncle. You’ve done what you can, and I thank you for it.”

It is a blunt and brief exchange, but Mai knows exactly how much her uncle has done for her and Ty Lee. They are still in the nobles’ cells, with clean sheets and no vermin. Their cell has an adjoining bathroom, and although it takes a guard’s keys to unlock, they don’t have to share it with any other prisoners. They are fed three times a day, and they haven’t been forced into the usual prison uniforms. Mai knows that when her clothes get too dirty to re-wear, the red shirt and pants she will be handed will be starched and new. 

“The princess has left the island,” her uncle continues. “I have orders to keep you out of her sight, but as long as she is gone, I can allow you to visit the common areas.”

“Thank you, Uncle.” Mai bows deeply, and he exits the cell.

“Ty Lee?” Mai goes over to the bed. Her friend has barely moved all day, only to eat and relieve herself. “Ty Lee, do you want to go outside?”

Ty Lee doesn’t answer. Mai sighs, and returns to her chair.

_Maybe nobody loved you when you were young_

_Maybe, boy, when you cry, nobody ever comes_

_Will you try it once?_

_Give up the machine gun_

_Machine gun_

One week after the battle at the Boiling Rock, a group of new prisoners arrive. Someone at court has become more paranoid since the jailbreak, and their influence has resulted in the consolidation of the Fire Nation’s prisoners. Mai’s habitual silence makes it easy to overhear conversations between other prisoners, and in the last couple of days, Ty Lee has begun to socialize again. Together, she and Mai have pieced together what is going on.

Prisoners from across the Fire Nation are being moved to the Boiling Rock and the Capital City tower prison, the whispers say. Guards are being transferred as well, moving from rural jails and empty prisons to the high-security facilities. Mai doesn’t know why they picked the two places that were most recently broken into, but it’s not her responsibility to poke holes in her jailer’s plans. She counts herself lucky that the earthbender rigs were abandoned earlier in the year - as bad as the Boiling Rock is, at least there’s no _coal._ She hates dirt, and coal dust may have its uses, but it’s still dirt.

She and Ty Lee are sitting in the shade against one of the prison yard walls when the gondola creaks into view. A group of young women file out, standing in ranks high up above as the Warden sets out the rules.

“Who’s the fresh meat?” Mai hears someone ask nearby.

“Kyoto Warriors or something. Earth Kingdom soldiers,” a guard replies. “Guess we get the group now that the leader’s fucked off with the Fire Prince.”

_Shit. The Kyoshi Warriors_. This isn’t the end of the world - Mai has faced worse - but living in the same prison complex as the young women she, Azula, and Ty Lee had defeated, imprisoned, and impersonated isn’t a great situation. Her only blessing is that their leader left with Zuko during the prison break. Hopefully they won’t do anything rash without her authority. _Maybe_ , she thinks sarcastically, _we’ll all become best friends!_

“Fucked off with the Fire Prince, huh?” Mai drawls. “You make it sound like they eloped or something.”

_Agni, why the hell did she say that._

The young guardsman scoffs. “Eloped? Nah, that’d be dishonorable even for a banished prince. Half the Fire Nation knows he’s got a girl back home, some stuck-up Fire nobility bitch. He may be willing to ruin one girl’s reputation, but from what I heard, he’s not the type to sleep around. Not when he’s got somewhere reliable to-”

The young guard shuts up as another group of soldiers passes by. Evidently someone in that group is his superior, she thinks, and he’s not supposed to be discussing this. _No one_ should be discussing this. Everyone knows spreading rumors about the nobility is the best way to find yourself the victim of some “accident” or another, and there’s no telling whether it’ll be fatal.

Mai takes a deep breath, drawing on the steel within her. For all that people joke and overdramatize, honor is important in the Fire Nation, and honor and reputation are the only things that guarantee her family’s continued wealth and power.

“Fire nobility, huh?” she says calmly, leaning a little closer. Her face shows nothing of her true feelings, but she allows a demure smile to cross her lips, tilts her head just slightly so she’s looking through her lashes. _Never say I learned nothing from you, Ty Lee_. “I used to live in Caldera City. Maybe I know her name.”

The cocky young guard steps right into the trap. For all his military training, he’s a laughably quick gossip. _Fool_.

“I heard it from a guard with a sister who’s married to an imperial firebender stationed at the palace. Lee doesn’t know her name, but he swears her father’s the governor of some conquered Earth Kingdom city.”

He’s leaning into her space now, trying and failing to subtly flex his biceps. “We defeat so many of them these days, I barely know which is which.”

“Oh?” she asks. _What an idiot. Like the army’s accomplishments affect him in any way. Just because they’re capturing new territory doesn’t mean he’s anything more than a prison guard. And one with subpar geography skills, at that. Any military man worth his flames knows that Omashu is a strategic location_.

“You know, my father’s a governor too!” Mai says, feigning surprise. “The Fire Lord gave him the captured city of Omashu.”

“Omashu! Yeah, that’s the one Lee said! But if you’re the governor of Omashu’s daughter…and the prince was...then you’re…”

The young guard’s face drains of color. Behind Mai, Ty Lee leans closer to listen in.

“Hmm.” Mai stretches her hands out in front of her, examining her black lacquered nails. “Small world, isn’t it? So easy to find people you know. So easy to send a messenger hawk to anywhere, really, especially when Mother is such good friends with General Mak’s wife…”

The guard’s face grows impossibly paler. “You - you wouldn’t - you can’t send messages out, you’re a prisoner! No general would listen to you!”

_Never mind that no general would have jurisdiction over a prison guard,_ she thinks. _It’s a wonder they put you here instead of in the infantry - at least there you’d have someone smarter thinking for you. But then, if I spoke to a general, you would really be screwed, wouldn’t you?_

“No? Then I’ll just talk to my uncle. He’s the Warden, he should be able to do _something_ about a guard willing to say such _vulgar_ things about his niece. I hope for your sake you can send messages out from prison. Your girlfriend might worry, and it must be difficult for someone like you to find…well. What were the words you used? _Somewhere reliable?”_

She looks him up and down with distaste, mouth twisting into a sneer worthy of the Fire Princess. The guard’s eyes widen in a sickening mixture of shame and fear.

“I didn’t…I wasn’t…”

“You weren’t thinking, were you? Well, I suppose I might be able to do you a favor…or rather, you owe me one. I keep this quiet, and you provide me with information. I want to know everything you hear about the war - especially the Avatar and his companions.”

“No!” the guard says, finding a shred of bravery. “You’re a prisoner!”

“Fine, then. I’ll go screaming to the Warden.”

“Wait! Fine. Don’t report me, I’ll do it.”

“Good. It’d be a shame for you to lose your position. Don’t look for me - I’ll find you when I need to.”

The young guard stands frozen in front of her. Mai hears Ty Lee snickering quietly from behind her, still lounging against the prison yard wall.

“Well? Don’t just stand here. Get out of my sight.”

The guard ran.

“Wow, Mai! You almost sounded like Azula!” Ty Lee exclaims once the young guard has left.

Mai’s face falls for a fraction of a second, but she pulls her mask back in place. “I did, didn’t I.”

Ty Lee notices, because Ty Lee always notices.

“I didn’t say that was a bad thing. I could tell it was acting. You’re not…vicious.” 

Mai can tell it took a lot of conviction for Ty Lee to say that. It’s been hard for her to realize how little Azula really cared for them, especially all at once.

Ty Lee continues, her voice a little braver. “And you know, you were talking about honor and everything? I don’t think you could be like Azula and care about someone else’s honor.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you were defending yourself, but it also kinda sounded like you were looking out for Zuko.”

“What? No. I just don’t like being the Fire Nation rumor mill’s latest focus. This has nothing to do with Zuko.”

“Then why’d you ask the guard to give you information about the Avatar and his friends?”

Mai swallows, turning her face away.

“Maybe I want to help Azula once she comes back,” she mumbles. It’s a flimsy excuse, and Ty Lee sees right through it.

“Mai, she’s not coming back. It’s hard to accept, but you helped me see that.”

Ty Lee’s expression is open and earnest, and Mai breaks. 

“Fine, maybe it is about Zuko, but it’s also about me!”

“What do you mean?”

“We chased them for months, Ty Lee. We only stopped because Zuko came home and we thought the Avatar was dead. When we were out there with Azula, we were important. The Fire Nation was counting on us. Then we came back and everything went back to normal.”

“Normal’s not a good thing for you, is it.”

“No. No, it’s not. Normal means being silent and perfect and bored. I want to do things! I want to travel with you and Azula and stay up all night tracking and get into fights that are too big for us.”

Ty Lee nodded in understanding. “I get it. Zuko freed himself, but you can’t.”

“Yeah. I’m stuck in Caldera City, and now you and I are stuck here. I don’t want to be stuck. So if I can get a little news about the outside world -”

“You’ll take what you can get.”

They lapse into silence, leaning against the prison yard and each other’s shoulders.

“Ty Lee?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad you’re here with me.”

“Me too, Mai.”

_Never mind how you've rationed your time_

_And the battle is underway_

_Maybe times are gonna change_

_Don't just hide in the silence behind_

_What you've really been trying to say_

_What a skill, baby, aiming to kill me_

_With words you don't mean_

Days in prison pass slowly, but not everything is the same as it was. Ty Lee is different now, braver now that she’s started to shake off Azula’s hold on her life. She’s the one who suggests they approach the Kyoshi Warriors during lunch.

Mai is apprehensive, but she follows, fiddling with her lunch tray just to have something to do with her hands. Agni, she wishes she had her knives. Maybe then she’d feel safe.

“Hello!” Ty Lee says brightly. “Can we sit with you for lunch?”

There are five of them, clustered together at a table in the corner of the room. Their faces are bare of makeup, and they have foregone their elaborate hairstyles for simple braids, buns, and ponytails. Their armor and headdresses are gone too, probably confiscated by the guards. They look like normal girls, all somewhere between twelve and sixteen.

“Why?” one asks.

“Didn’t you try to kill us?” another adds.

Mai decides this is the perfect time to break in. “We were trying to capture you, not kill you.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” a third mutters.

“It doesn’t matter,” a fourth says decisively. She seems to be the one in charge. “Are you going to try to kill us now?”

“Nope!” Ty Lee says. “I promise.”

The Kyoshi Warrior in charge looks apprehensive, and she turns to the others for their opinions. Nods and shrugs are passed around, and a silent consensus is reached.

“Okay,” she says. “You can sit with us, but no fighting or arguing.”

“That’s fair,” Mai agrees. 

“I’m Ty Lee,” Ty Lee says as she sits down. “That’s Mai. Azula was with us when we saw you last time, but she’s the one who put us in here, so I guess we can bond over that!”

The girl in charge looks surprised, but she takes it in stride. “I’m Hikari,” she says. “This is Sayuri, Kimiko, Mana, and Chiharu.”

The girls all wave or give slight bows. Mai inclines her head back at them, then slides in to sit beside Ty Lee.

“So, where were you guys before this?” Ty Lee asks.

“The tunnels under Ba Sing Se,” Sayuri answers. “When the Fire Nation took over the city, they also took over the dungeons, but after Omashu fell on the Day of Black Sun, the Fire Nation guards weren’t big on watching foreign prisons.”

Mana nodded in agreement. “They had already started moving us when our guards heard about the Boiling Rock break-out.”

“We heard a bit from the guards, but they wouldn’t tell us what happened,” Chiharu said. “You were fighting with the Fire Princess the last time we saw you. Do you know about it?”

“Please tell us!” Kimiko asked. _Agni, she could rival Ty Lee for exuberance_.

“Well,” Ty Lee starts, “first Zuko came to the Boiling Rock to free some prisoners -”

“ _Prince_ Zuko?” Mana asked.

“Uh-huh. Anyways, he got caught, so then Azula said we had to come capture him, since he’s a fugitive and all. But when we got here, Mai decided that it was more important to get Zuko and his friends out alive than to keep Azula happy, and I couldn’t let Mai get killed!”

Kimiko’s eyes were wide. “What did you do?”

“I chi-blocked her. It worked, but it made her mad enough to put us in prison.”

The Kyoshi Warriors don’t know Ty Lee well enough to pick up on what she’s leaving out, but Mai hears it. _Azula said we had to. I couldn’t let Mai get killed - couldn’t let Azula kill Mai. Azula would rather kill us than be defied. Azula’s mercy is prison. Azula doesn’t care - Azula doesn’t love us_.

“Mai? Why was Zuko more important?” Chiharu asked.

“Oh, um.” Mai wasn’t sure how to answer - how much does a thirteen-year old girl know about love? For that matter, how much does a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl know?

She decides to take the plunge. “That’s just what you do when you love someone. Try not to get them killed, and all.”

Hikari nods. “Sometimes it seems like that’s all this war is,” she says sadly.

Mai gets it. The men who started this war are long dead. Maybe Fire Lord Ozai and the generals are fighting for glory, but everyone else - all the little soldiers on the ground and on the decks of ships - they’re just trying to make it back to homes still standing.

Ty Lee is still talking with the other Kyoshi Warriors, but Mai and Hikari are quiet. _What home am I fighting for,_ Mai wonders, _and will it be there when I come back?_

In a war with firebenders, Mai knows the chances of returning to ashes are higher than she’d like.

🜂

Mai and Ty Lee keep eating meals with the Kyoshi Warriors. It must be their third or fourth lunch together when Mai turns her head and sees a familiar face across the mess hall.

“Hikari?”

The other girl looks up from her food. “Yes?”

“I have to go take care of something.” 

Mai’s eyes flick down the table. Ty Lee is animatedly telling Sayuri and Chiharu about how she learned to chi-block. Mana and Kimiko are engrossed in a complicated hand game, oblivious to both conversations.

Hikari nods, understanding immediately. “I’ll watch them.”

Mai stands up from the table, face grim, and strides to the cafeteria doorway. She inclines her head ever so slightly as she passes the young guard, then makes a sharp right down the hall toward the restrooms.

She doesn’t know why she asked Hikari to watch Ty Lee - not on the surface - but she suspects it has something to do with the fact that in this moment, she feels like Azula. Ty Lee shouldn’t be alone with someone like that, only able to rely on them. 

Mai doesn’t know Hikari well, but she sees the same look in her eyes that she sees when she looks in the mirror - the one that makes her fear what would happen if her knives were sharper and her morals looser, that makes her wonder if the people who leave her go for a reason. She and the Kyoshi Warrior walk the line between protector and predator, desperately clinging to good while knowing full well evil is only one slipped step away.

Mai has another demon following her too, but now she must work with it, let it coil around her shoulders to brace her as the young guard follows her to a secluded alcove. _Apathy_. 

“What do you have for me?” Mai cuts straight to the point. She doesn’t face him, instead leaning against the side of the hallway and staring across at the opposite wall.

“Not much, miss,” the guard says shakily. “Just rumors, mostly.”

“Well?”

“A - a flying bison was spotted in the southern islands of the Fire Nation, but no one traced it back to wherever the Avatar and his friends are hiding,” he reports. “No one’s seen them since the Western Air Temple.”

_Shit._ Mai doesn’t know anything about the Western Air Temple, but from the guard’s tone, something had happened there. She could ask and betray her lack of knowledge - and her desperation - or she could try to twist his words into a problem for him, not her.

_O Azula, patron goddess of liars_ , Mai thinks to herself, smiling wryly, _lend me your fucked-up ways_. 

“You know what’s funny, I don’t remember hearing from you about the Western Air Temple,” she says. “You wouldn’t have forgotten to tell me something important, would you?”

The guard goes pale. “Well, no, um - I mean yes - I mean no, I didn’t tell you, but it only happened the day after the princess left! I thought you… already knew.”

Mai rolls her eyes. “Clearly not.”

“The Fire Prince stole the Princess’ airship when he fled the Boiling Rock. Her Highness tracked him back to the Western Air Temple and attacked. The Avatar and his teachers escaped on the Avatar’s bison, and the escaped prisoners are still at large.”

“What happened to the princess?”

“Well. Um. I don’t think I’m supposed to say?”

“Why? She didn’t die, we’d all have heard about that.”

The guard scratches the back of his neck. He’s still nervous, but he’s not looking at the floor anymore. “No, she’s still alive, but she was blasted off of her airship by the Fire Prince. I heard she fell most of the way down the cliffside before she caught herself.”

“I… don’t see an issue.”

“You wouldn’t, as a noble,” he says, his tone a touch darker. She’s a little surprised at his sudden confidence. “For the rest of us, speaking ill of the Fire Lord and his family could mean a death sentence if the wrong person is listening.”

“Huh,” Mai says.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she remarks, “just that… sometimes I can’t tell whose side you’re on.”

The guard laughs. “I may be stupid enough to call a noblewoman a bitch to her face, but I’m not stupid enough to claim sides when Fire Nation nobility are involved. I go with whoever keeps me alive. Right now, that’s you.”

“You’ve gotten cynical.”

He shrugs. “People change. And with the news coming out of Caldera City, who wouldn’t? Sozin’s Comet is coming within the week. I’m going to have to deal with all the firebenders here who get powered up, and after that I’m going to have to deal with whatever happens in the capitol.”

“You think the Avatar will attack the Fire Lord?” Mai asks incredulously.

“Not think, I know. Not all of the prisoners from the Day of Black Sun were uncooperative like those bastards they sent here.”

“What does that mean for all of us here?” Mai asks. She’s facing him now, and his voice isn’t shaking anymore.

“It means that after Sozin’s Comet, we either face an angry Fire Lord, or an angry Avatar. You’ve got an in with both, so I hope that when we’re all standing in the ashes, you spare a thought for your captors. We’ve been kinder than we could be.”

He bows slightly, not low enough to be considered respectful, and walks down the hall. Mai waits a moment and then follows, back to the cafeteria, the Kyoshi Warriors, and Ty Lee.

_May the comet bring you strength,_ Zuko, she thinks.

If her guard is right, they’re all going to need it.

_Maybe nobody loved you when you were young_

_Maybe, boy, when you cry, nobody ever comes_

_Will you try it once?_

_Give up the machine gun_

The palace halls feel different. They’ve always been sort of hollow, but now they feel new, too - like the stones themselves know that a new era is dawning.

It’s a few hours after dawn and Mai is tired from traveling all night, but she does her best not to let it show. She, Ty Lee, and the Kyoshi Warriors were released from the Boiling Rock a week ago, but it took time to recover from the prison environment and to make the journey by ship back to Caldera City. It took time to take in the stories, too - of the airship fleet that almost burned the Earth Kingdom, of Fire Lord Ozai’s defeat, of Prince Zuko’s final agni kai against Princess Azula. It's… a lot.

Mai feels dead on her feet. She almost wishes she’d followed Ty Lee’s example and gone with the guard who met them at the gates to show them to their rooms.

She’s not here to sleep, though. She’s here for Zuko - his coronation is tomorrow, and if she doesn’t find him now, she won’t see him until after he’s crowned Fire Lord. The palace almost seems to know it, too. It’s vast and empty and full of a strange feeling that borders on anticipation. Every set of tall, gilded doors opens into another empty room, full of relics of Fire Lords past or heavy wooden furniture that probably last saw use in Sozin’s day.

Mai has the sudden urge to say something, just to see how her voice echoes between the columns.

“Hello, empty palace,” she says. Her voice sounds sort of rough and unrefined, but she finds herself liking it. It’s a voice that would be out of place in the Fire Nation court, just like she feels. Perfect. Nothing fits the old ways anymore, not after Ozai’s defeat. Why should she fit the old rules? Mai’s changed too, and she feels it.

“Where can I find Zuko, empty palace?” she asks, swinging her arms as she walks. 

She doesn’t expect it to respond. “This way, Lady Mai.”

“Huh?”

Mai whirls around, a knife shooting out of her sleeve and into her hand.

“Oh,” she realizes. A woman in a servant’s uniform stands behind her in the shadow of a column, gesturing down a nearby hallway. “Thank you.”

The woman bows low, melting back into the gloom. Mai walks down the hallway she indicated and watches the light grow as the windows along the walls grow larger. There’s an open door maybe halfway down, and her footsteps grow quieter as she gets closer.

She gets to the doorway and he’s there, lit from behind with a wash of sunlight from the open windows. She stands for a moment and just takes him in, this beautiful, infuriating boy who she’s hated and loved and fought and kissed and most of all just really, really missed.

“Ah!” Zuko lets out a sharp gasp as he tries to get his arm into the sleeve of his robe. Mai can see the heavy layers of bandages on his chest, and she’s speaking before she knows it.

“You need some help with that?”

Zuko lights up when he sees her. “Mai, you’re okay!” he exclaims, smiling at her with a brightness she hasn’t seen in years. “They let you out of prison?”

She shrugs. “My uncle pulled some strings.” Truthfully, Mai doesn’t know how they got out of prison early, but she suspects that family ties had something to do with it.

Zuko moves toward her, and she ducks under his right arm and guides it into his loose sleeve instead. It feels so natural to be with him like this, and although she didn’t plan it, the joke slips out like she always meant to say it.

“And... it doesn’t hurt when the new Fire Lord is your boyfriend.” 

He beams at that, and she smiles softly at him as she ties the sash around his waist.

She moves around him so she can see his face, hands skimming over his shoulders so she doesn’t have to lose contact.

“So, does this mean you don’t hate me anymore?” he asks hopefully.

“I think it means I actually kind of like you,” Mai replies.

She’s blushing and she knows it, but she’s been in prison and then traveling for what feels like forever, and as embarrassing as it is, she knew she was home the second she saw Zuko. They’ve both made mistakes, some unforgivable, but she’s cupping his cheek in her hand and he’s looking straight into her eyes and she can tell they’ve both grown. Even with his injury, Zuko is standing straight and tall, and there’s less pain hanging over him. It’s not all gone - some of it will never leave him - but Mai knows somewhere deep in her gut that he’s forgiven himself.

She’s changed, too. Mai’s sure that she learned the most she ever knew about herself at the Boiling Rock. Between cutting ties with Azula, making friends with the Kyoshi Warriors, and coming to a place of grudging respect with her Boiling Rock guard, Mai feels like she has uncovered more sides to herself than ever. She, like everyone else, has been re-forged by the Comet. It burned away the unimportant things, and when the sky turned red over the Boiling Rock prison yard, Mai took Ty Lee’s hand in hers and nodded to Hikari and sent her prayers for Zuko and for the Fire Nation into the Agni-forsaken void. Perhaps, it seems, Agni answered.

_Maybe,_ she thinks, _this second chance for the Fire Nation can be a second chance for us too_.

Time must have slowed when she was thinking, because suddenly she’s back in the room with Zuko and suddenly Zuko’s face is tilted down toward hers and she’s angling her face up to him and then they’re kissing, and it feels warmer and softer and safer than it ever did before. Her hand is twisted in the shaggy hair at the base of his neck and his hands are pressed against her upper back. She can feel him smiling against her mouth, and she thinks that this, this is the home she was missing all that time she felt untethered. _This_ is the Zuko she fell in love with.

They pull away, far enough to breathe but close enough that their faces are still nearly touching. They’re smiling at each other like idiots, and suddenly it’s all too much for Mai, so she redirects his attention the best way she knows how.

“But don’t ever break up with me again,” she admonishes, poking a finger into his shoulder.

He pulls a face at her, but it melts into another sunshine smile.

Mai leans in against him, and he presses his face into her hair. She can feel his warm breath on her scalp, even and calm despite the weight of the world facing him outside the palace. In another sunrise, Zuko will be Fire Lord, but for now he is here in her arms, warm and safe and smelling of cinnamon and candle smoke where her nose is resting in the hollow of his collarbone.

They both have so much waiting for them outside those doors, and she knows they have a ways to go, but she can’t help looking back at how far they’ve come, too. They are no longer the innocent, laughing childhood friends they once were, nor the sullen, jaded teenagers whose shoes they occupied mere weeks ago. She and Zuko are new people, forged in the fire of their pasts and waiting to be tempered by their futures. They have grown beyond the empty puppet strings of their birthrights, stepped off that loveless stage of court politics and false loyalty.

She knows that their next steps will not be easy - she never expected that. She knows that Zuko is young, probably too young to effectively rule a nation. She knows that for all her posturing, she is as naïve as he is. And, deep in her gut, she knows that their relationship won’t always be as simple as it feels in this moment - at some point, they will have to confront the past in order to fully move past it. But she also knows that they have taken unprecedented steps towards lives of love and peace, and they’re bringing the rest of the Fire Nation with them, one foot in front of the other.

She knows she loves him. She knows he loves her. She knows the sun will rise in the morning, and she turns with him to face it.

_Will you try it once?_

_Give up the machine gun_

_Will you try it once?_

_Give up the machine gun_

_Machine gun_

_Yeah_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a new ATLA fan, and I really liked Maiko when I started watching. Now I've watched ATLA and LOK, I love them both, and I find myself shipping Maiko, Zukka, Mailee, Sukka, Zuko/Sokka/Suki, among others. They're all good ships, whatever. I liked this and wanted to get it done and published.
> 
> I was trying to make the issues with Mai and Zuko's relationship during the show clear, but also set up the idea that living through the end of the war changed them in ways that could pave a path for them to build a better, healthier relationship post-canon. Will I write that future relationship? I don't know.
> 
> A sequel is up in the air and honestly unlikely, but since I finished LOK in August and started writing fic for that before finishing this, look out for some more stories from me! I have a couple of short ones and I'm working on a longer one, too.
> 
> Oh, also, if you were wondering which Kyoshi Warrior is which, I asked Kiyo to help me name the ones that are shown in "Appa's Lost Days" and Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang."  
>   
> From left to right: Sayuri, Kimiko, Suki, Mana, Chiharu. Hikari is the sixth Kyoshi Warrior who's not in this picture for some reason but who was also on that mission. She's the one who found Appa's fur.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
